Saturday, April 18, 2020
Trump is playing with fire
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/18/opinions/trump-is-playing-with-fire-ghitis/index.html
President Donald Trump is playing with fire. Just 24 hours after he told the nation's governors, "You are going to call your own shots,"
when it comes to reopening the economy, the President posted a series
of incendiary messages on Twitter that seemed to incite his followers to
revolt against the current orders to stay at home.
"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" one tweet shouted in capital letters. He issued similar tweets calling for the liberation of Minnesota and Virginia,
including a disturbing addendum for loyalists to "save your great 2nd
Amendment," adding, "It is under siege!" It is unclear why Trump brought
up gun rights in apparent references to pandemic mitigation measures,
but the language is familiar. Who can forget his comments at a rally in
2016, when he considered the possibility that Hillary Clinton might win
the presidential election? "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you
can do folks," Trump said before adding, "Although the Second Amendment people -- maybe there is, I don't know."
A Key G.O.P. Strategy: Blame China. But Trump Goes Off Message.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/politics/trump-china-virus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Republicans
increasingly believe that elevating China’s culpability for spreading
the coronavirus may be the best way to improve their difficult election
chances. The president is muddying the message.
Rising Shortage of Dialysis Units Alarms Doctors
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
Kidney specialists now estimate that 20
percent to 40 percent of patients in intensive care suffered kidney
failure and needed emergency dialysis. Outside of New York, the growing
demand for kidney treatments is becoming a major burden on hospitals in
emerging hot spots like Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit.
Friday, April 17, 2020
White House defends Ivanka Trump's personal travel amid lockdown
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52317673
The White House has defended Ivanka
Trump's personal trip to New Jersey last week even as federal guidelines
advise Americans to remain at home.
The president's eldest
daughter and her family travelled from Washington DC to the Trump
National Golf Club in Bedminster to celebrate Passover.
Time to fire Jared and Ivanka
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/opinions/fire-ivanka-and-jared-passover-travel-bergen/index.html
The hypocrisy of the Kushner and Trump's behavior is breathtaking.
Kushner has now positioned himself as the overall czar of the coronavirus relief effort. Just like his dismal peace-making efforts in the Middle East, Kushner has added another layer of confusion
to the muddled White House coronavirus response by, for example,
promoting the speedy development of drive-thru nationwide testing sites
that still haven't materialized.
Meanwhile
Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, has positioned herself as an
avatar of social distancing, telling her 8.5 million followers on
Twitter on April 12, "There's no substitute for social distancing."
Ivanka Trump traveled to New Jersey to celebrate Passover despite coronavirus guidelines
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/16/politics/ivanka-trump-travels-to-new-jersey-coronavirus/index.html
Ivanka Trump traveled with her family from Washington to Bedminster, New Jersey, last week to celebrate Passover, a White House official said Thursday.
Trump's decision to leave Washington, first reported by The New York Times,
disregarded the federal coronavirus guidelines advising against
discretionary travel that she has urged other Americans to follow.
"Ivanka
-- with her immediate family -- celebrated Passover at a closed down
facility considered to be a family home. Her travel was no different
than had she been traveling to/from work and the location was less
populated than the surrounding area near her home in D.C.," the official
told CNN in a statement Thursday.
The
official continued, "While at Bedminster she has been practicing social
distancing and working remotely. Her travel was not commercial. She
chose to spend a holiday in private with her family."
U.K. Paid $20 Million for New Coronavirus Tests. They Didn’t Work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/middleeast/coronavirus-antibody-test-uk.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The two Chinese companies were offering a
risky proposition: two million home test kits said to detect antibodies
for the coronavirus for at least $20 million, take it or leave it.
The
asking price was high, the technology was unproven and the money had to
be paid upfront. And the buyer would be required to pick up the crate
loads of test kits from a facility in China.
Yet
British officials took the deal, according to a senior civil servant
involved, then confidently promised tests would be available at
pharmacies in as little as two weeks. “As simple as a pregnancy test,” gushed Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “It has the potential to be a total game changer.”
There was one problem, however. The tests did not work.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
A Crime Against Humanity.’ Why Trump’s WHO Funding Freeze Benefits Nobody
https://time.com/5821122/who-funding-trump-covid19-coronavirus-china/
Public health experts have savaged
President Donald Trump’s decision to cut U.S. funding to the World
Health Organization (WHO), which he says failed in its “basic duty”
during the coronavirus pandemic by promoting “disinformation” from
China.
The move represents another stunning turnaround for Trump, who in late February praised
the WHO for “working hard and very smart,” before souring on the world
body in recent days as the U.S. death toll soared. Still, it remains in
line with his longstanding distrust of multilateral institutions more generally.
Critics have accused the President of attempting to shift blame away from his own torpid response to the pandemic. The WHO declared a public health emergency on Jan. 30, after which Trump continued to speak at rallies and belittle COVID-19 as “the flu.”
Critics agree the WHO’s response suffered missteps at the outset of
the coronavirus outbreak. There was a focus on government information
rather than non-official sources, such as whistleblowers like Dr. Li Wenliang.
Officials could have investigated how many healthcare workers had
become infected, which was clear evidence of human-to-human transmission
before official confirmation came Jan. 23. It advised nations not to
close borders.
Ultra-Orthodox Enclave in Israel Opens to Outsiders to Fight a Virus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/world/middleeast/virus-israel-Orthodox-Bnei-Brak.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
When an insular
religious community became an epicenter for the coronavirus, its leaders
did the unthinkable, calling on the military to help turn things
around.
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